The Eye of the Abyss (15 page)

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Authors: Marshall Browne

BOOK: The Eye of the Abyss
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He was looking straight into Dietrich's cold blue eyes. The Nazi stood in the doorway watching with an acute, inquiring expression. Schmidt's heart froze; he'd not heard the door move – not heard a thing.
The Nazi smiled. ‘What is this? Working late, Herr Auditor?'
Schmidt nodded; a desperate reflex action. How long had he been in the doorway?
‘I've been looking for you – came in earlier, but you were not here.'
‘I've been out, Herr Director,' Schmidt said. ‘Calm down,' he intoned to himself. He walked back to his desk, reassembling his composure with each step – each breath.
‘Ah … out!' Dietrich tilted his head, as though weighing the possibilities of‘out', his gaze unwavering. ‘But now in.' He lifted his scrutiny smoothly from Schmidt's face, then to the photograph of the Wertheim building. ‘The building's deserted yet I feel people are around – lying low. Isn't that strange? Never mind.' He pointed to the safe. ‘I'm curious. How does the system work? If you're unable to attend the bank, say in the case of a personal disaster, how do they open the safe?'
Schmidt felt he was wearing his calm with the ineffectiveness of a threadbare coat, veteran of too many winters. ‘As with everyone, Herr Director, my combination is in a sealed envelope at our clearing bankers – available on the signature of two directors.'
‘I see. How interesting. Is everything going well? No problems?'
‘Everything is proceeding as normal.'
‘Good. I've told you, even in the rosiest apple there's sometimes a vile worm. Be vigilant, my friend.'
Schmidt nodded. His concealed breathlessness was abating.
Dietrich grinned. ‘Naturally, one hopes nothing will happen to you my dear Schmidt.'
He came and sat on the desk-edge, brought out his cigarettes. Schmidt sat down too, and they both lit up. Swinging his leg back and forth, the Nazi smoked away companionably, while Schmidt measured out the moments.
‘Nothing to go home to, my friend?'
‘On the contrary, I was about to leave. My dinner will be waiting.' Deliberately, Schmidt kept his eye from the attaché
case which lay beside the Nazi's splayed left hand. It was strange to think of that old case, his father's, as a potential death warrant.
‘No medieval history tonight at the Municipal Library?'
‘No, mein herr.'To Schmidt's hyperactive nerves, it was another loaded question. Then came yet another:
‘Your family's returned suddenly and unexpectedly to Dresden. My dear Franz, I hope no problems?'
Schmidt couldn't conceal his surprise. Dietrich's face was intent now – as though straining for a confirmation. And —
My Dear Franz?
The auditor said, ‘Normal family movements.'
So they were watching his family. The contents of his stomach turned over – audibly. Beyond the Nazi's head the clock showed 6.15 pm. A different current of pressure came. How long could Dressler wait?
The Nazi exhaled blue smoke, and smiled indulgently. ‘The Gestapo are still interested in you following the Dressler affair. Twice now you've featured in the Party's files. They're like hounds on the scent, hard to whip off it. It cost me a lot to get you off that. But don't worry. They're not short of other work. And you're not going to make any more mistakes, are you?'
‘No. I owe you my thanks for that, Herr Dietrich.'
The Nazi beamed, almost embarrassed, opening up a crack in his controlled personality. Schmidt smoked, watched and waited.
‘I've a high regard for you. For your work, for you personally. I considered it a worthwhile investment. Why don't you join me one night soon for an intimate little dinner, a little champagne. We'll get to know each other better. Off-duty, you will find me a very pleasant fellow.'
Schmidt's heart and mind had moved into a synchronisation with the ticking of the clock. A subtle kind of gearshift.
This last proposal came as a jolt. The Nazi was in the grip of some strong emotion. The yellowish teeth flashed, but nervously. Instinctively, Schmidt felt that they'd arrived at the crux of this episode.
‘I would be honoured, Herr Director.'Would he ever leave?
Dietrich relaxed visibly. ‘I mustn't detain you, my dear Franz. Shall we say – soon?'
The auditor glanced at his hat, his coat, and the Nazi's gaze alighted on the attaché case. He frowned. Schmidt's heartbeats bounded. Abruptly, Dietrich left his perch. Back in command, he grinned. ‘Goodnight, Herr Auditor.' From the door he gave Schmidt a look as if to say that the auditor's thoughts were a road-map he could see clearly.
Schmidt sat rigid, the cigarette burning to a column of ash in his fingers, the taste of metal in his mouth. By God! What was tonight?
Outside the door Dietrich paused, also analysing the interview.
T
HE INVESTIGATORS FROM the Gestapo central office drove out to the Dresden suburb as night fell. Catching up on the run, the man in the passenger seat, with the aid of the car's interior light, read a teletype aloud. When they arrived at the turn-of-the-century house in its acre of wooded garden, they were fully briefed.
‘Come on,' the senior said as they climbed out, ‘we can be back in town to eat – with or without this woman, as the case may be.'
Helga opened the door: on the porch two faces floated in the dark like dabs of cream. Behind them in the trees an owl called. She heard it as a warning, but thought:
What small men for policemen. And: Oh, Franz!
She was surprised how calm she felt as she peered at the official card. With a slight gesture, she bade them step into the hall. Her mother was upstairs in bed, Trudi was with her, colouring-in a book. The childish voice sounded, a thin plaint in the stairwell. She could hear her sister preparing the meal in the kitchen. The simple sounds of domestic life. And here in the dark-panelled hall nuances of Franz, his mysterious world, the steely cadences of the State.
Can I cope with this?
‘What is it you want?' she said politely, her head tilted, arms clasped under her breasts. She kept the men standing,
drawing the line of intrusion.
‘We have questions about your husband, Frau Schmidt,' the senior said. ‘A few questions, soon answered, I would hope.' He considered the light and warmth of the living room beyond glass doors. ‘However, I warn you to think carefully before answering.'
‘Yes? Please go on.'
‘Has your husband ever been a member of a political party?'
‘Never.' The answer was automatic, accurate.
‘Who are his chief friends and associates?'
This was harder. Franz's interests were circumscribed by the bank, his family, and his solitary esoteric hobby. She frowned, exhibiting her concentration, fighting to hold back this nightmare.
‘My husband is devoted to the bank. His colleagues there make up his friends and associates.' She spoke quietly, again with accuracy.
‘Including Herr Wagner?'
‘Of course, they've been colleagues for many years.'
‘Who else is he close to at the bank?'
Helga thought methodically, decided boldly. ‘Herr Dietrich. He's closely associated with him.'
They dwelt on this for a moment.
‘Has your husband taken trips away? Especially abroad?'
‘No.'
The three of them were silent, as though they were players on a stage who'd lost the thread of a scene. The team leader's face was expressionless. He reconsidered two paragraphs in the teletype: the incident with the SA three years ago, the recent death of the man's mother during an investigation by colleagues involving a Jewish woman: two dramatic incidents sitting damned strangely in such an uneventful life.
‘Why have you returned to Dresden?'
Helga had lowered her chin, now she brought it up and tossed back her blonde hair. ‘My mother continues to need my support.' Doubtless they'd know about the operation.
‘Yes? But you've a sister here.'
Deliberately, she moistened her lips. Was it the right time to make the revelation? Perhaps the perfect opportunity. Her heart was beating much faster.
‘There is a private reason. I've decided to divorce my husband. I will not be returning home.'
A flicker of animation passed over their faces. ‘Uhuh?' the leader grunted. ‘What's the reason for this sudden decision?'
‘It's not sudden. We're no longer compatible in the married state.' In her ears, her voice sounded like someone else's.
The leader sucked at his teeth, as though retasting his last meal. ‘You're disturbed by his actions, his opinions? Isn't that so?'
‘No, that is not correct. I've told you the reason.' She stared at them, willing them to go. Then she'd think about what such questions meant for Franz. Contact him. She presumed they'd not yet questioned him. Why hadn't they? But perhaps they had …
The men looked at each other, the leather coats crackled, electrically alive. She thought: In tune with their thoughts.
‘We won't detain you longer, Frau Schmidt,' the leader said. They turned their backs and went down the porch steps.
Helga listened for the sound of their car but heard nothing. All her fears had been well founded. That the situation had crystallised here – tonight – was inexplicable. An idea came: Perhaps it was Wagner they were interested in. It was a straw to clutch at. Her heart was really pounding now.
‘Dear Franz – it's a device – not the end for us.'
She whispered the fervent explanation out to where the owl sat, searching the darkness for telltale movement.
The leader sat in the passenger seat assessing the house
and grounds. The huge, dim oaks which hemmed in the house didn't impress him. The suburban streetlights failed to penetrate the massed trunks.
‘That woman's either honest, or cunning. See? Even in a routine job like this, our work's no fucking picnic.' He sounded as if he were clinching an old argument.
‘A bit of work on her can fix that,' the other grunted.
‘Don't count on it.'
‘Has
he gone off the rails?'
The leader shrugged. ‘Maybe. Let's go, I hate this fucking suburb, it stinks of the bourgeois.'
The engine started, and gravel crunched under the tyres. In the hall, Helga slowly let out her breath.
 
 
Schmidt hurried to the cathedral. Again, the giant detective wasn't there. The stone embrasure was empty. Schmidt surveyed the platz. Six forty-five pm. Was he too late? At a loss, he gripped the attaché case and stared across to the ever-present, incandescent café-life. The intervening motor traffic latticed headlights across the platz.
What now? He felt exposed, the attaché case a deadly liability.
A touch on the shoulder. God! He whipped around. Dressler loomed above him – like a statue displaced from the public gardens; a mobile statue which'd stepped out of a pool of darkness, and approached silently on thick rubber.
Schmidt exhaled his tension, gasped: ‘My apologies.'
‘I went to look the neighbourhood over. Also to see if you're being followed. It doesn't appear so. Now Herr Schmidt, we must get a move on. The people we're to meet have the nerves of wild deer. They won't wait.'
They walked into a dark district. Breezes sang softly in
the alleys: sighs of despair. Did Dressler feel this atmosphere? Schmidt had to break into a run to keep up, which spurred his thinking. Beside him, Dressler's breathing whistled in the dark. They turned under an arch. A touch of life: a violin was playing deep in an interior. Congratulations to the player. Schmidt tripped, plunged out of control into a black abyss. Dressler's giant hand shot out and plucked him back, steadied him.
‘Careful, Herr Schmidt. This isn't like
your
suburb. The municipality doesn't spend money here.'
The detective slowed, inspecting doorways. They stood under a portico, heard a bell resound in the interior. Schmidt was vaguely aware of masonry columns on either side. A house of large proportions. A scratching came at the door; like a rat going at ceiling wiring.
Three men waited in a library. Rubinstein, his hat removed on this occasion, gestured to chairs set at a vast table gleaming like a mirror. Schmidt was dazzled; a surfeit of electricity here.
A greater surprise was the short, barrel-chested, white-moustached man, his massive head on one side as if it were a burden. He stood apart. The famous Jewish banker watched them with a speculative air, smiled slightly at Schmidt's sign of recognition. The man had dropped from public view. The auditor bowed formally, took his place beside Dressler at the table.
Rubinstein studied Schmidt. He said, ‘May I ask what value you've brought, and in what form?'
Schmidt welcomed the absence of preliminaries. He silently drew in a breath. ‘I have 500,000 marks of Reich bonds — in denominations of 100,000. As I understand the situation, the 200,000 – is it? — necessary for Fräulein Dressler's case, and 300,000 to be used at your discretion.' He spoke rapidly, in a meticulous tone.
A younger man with black, glued-down hair looked up quickly from the tabletop. They considered the figures stated.
Rubinstein said, ‘A generous proposal. However, you'll understand we give no guarantees. Circumstances are variable, sometimes we succeed, sometimes not. The persons we deal with can be trusted only to the degree their self-interest is satisfied. They're not people of honour. And the influence they have today may be gone tomorrow. The Nazi leadership, as much as they can, keep things on the move.' His hands made gestures, massaging his words. ‘The fact that she's in detention is a complication.'
Schmidt glanced at Dressler. He opened the attaché case, passed the packet across the desk. Rubinstein examined the Wertheim & Co identification, and regarded the auditor with curiosity. Schmidt thought: Everything isn't known. The ex-judge passed the packet to the younger man, who opened it, examined the top document, held it up to the light, inspected watermarks with an eye-glass, put on a rubber thumb-stall and counted with the same facility Schmidt had shown earlier in the evening. Then he examined the other bonds. They watched in silence.
The banker had moved to watch the young man over his shoulder. His eyes downcast, he said deeply out of that chest, ‘These will be fed onto the markets in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg over several days. However, they're numbered, of course, and it would not be impossible to trace individual bonds back to source – should an investigation commence, and the investigators have enough power, skill, and luck. And if records have been kept. I presume it's inevitable they'll be found missing at some point.'
He'd spoken in a relaxed tone. He looked directly at Schmidt. ‘Doubtless you've taken that factor into account.'
Dressler sat erect, huge and silent at the table, as though he were a non-combatant watching a barrage going up. The
flick, flick of the count, the stiff rustle of the security paper, was beyond his experience.
Back in the street Schmidt wondered at the detective's thoughts. Then he wondered at the force within himself which had impelled him on this strange odyssey.
‘Thank you, Herr Schmidt.' Dressler's voice unexpectedly vibrated with emotion, as though he, too, was thinking about Schmidt's conduct. ‘Now, let us get away from here.'

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